WaterAid and PRO-T3

Launched at drupa 2012, Fujifilm's initiative with WaterAid, the international charity dedicated to enabling the world’s poorest communities to access safe water and sanitation, has consistently surpassed its targets.

Background:

The partnership started off as a one year cause-related marketing (CRM) agreement between Fujifilm Europe and WaterAid in 2012, centred on the launch of Fujifilm’s new PRO-T3 product, an aluminium printing plate that requires no water in its processing. In the last 4 years WaterAid has received an incredible €261,371 towards its clean water and sanitation projects across 37 countries.

Where the money goes:

WaterAid is the largest charity in the world that focuses exclusively on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene education (WASH). We believe in a world where everyone everywhere has access to clean water and toilets, but unfortunately even today, millions of people around the world lack access to these basic human rights.

The money donated by Fujifilm goes directly to projects which help some of the poorest and most marginalised people in the world gain access to WASH- this has included building water pumps and rainwater harvesting systems, protecting natural springs and digging wells and latrine blocks. All of these activities have taken place within different country programmes as a direct result of Fujifilm’s support.

The new opportunity ahead:

Last year, the United Nations adopted 17 sustainable Global Goals to end world poverty by 2030. WaterAid led the calls for an independent goal to tackle the WASH crisis and to ensure that everyone has access to clean water and sanitation by 2030. We were, therefore, thrilled to see the inclusion of Global Goal 6- ‘Clean Water and Sanitation for all’.

Corporations around the world are now aligning their corporate social responsibility (CSR) agendas with the Global Goals. We have seen within the international development sector partnerships moving beyond the transactional and becoming more strategic, where both the donor and charity share the global vision of eradicating poverty by 2030.

The future:

We are delighted that Fujifilm has confirmed its support of WaterAid for a further three years, building on the work we have done already and taking our partnership through to 2019.

Meet Baby Angelo

He is just over 1 year old and lives in the Vakinankaratra region of Madagascar.Baby Angelo is incredibly lucky, because unlike his older siblings, he was born in to a community which had just received clean water as a result of WaterAid’s work there last year.

Angelo’s mum Mariane told us that before WaterAid’s work there, and before Angelo was born, she would have to fetch dirty water from the nearby ricefields. She would try and boil as much of it as she could to kill the germs and parasites. However, sometimes when her other children were really thirsty and couldn’t wait for her to boil the water, they would drink the dirty water behind her back. This led to them getting sick again and again and Mariane spent a lot of time taking them to the health centre which cost her both time and money.

Picture of Mariane and Angelo at the water pump which WaterAid installed in their village earlier this year (2016)

She says in her own words: “Before safe water arrived in our village, life was much harder. We used to fetch water from a dirty open source near the rice field. This water had an impact on our lives, especially for my family as I have many children. Children used to be sick from drinking the dirty water. We didn’t really realise that the water we drank was so dirty and made our children sick until we got safe clean water from the pump. You can see the difference even just by looking at the colour of the water. You know, we live in a very rural area and life here isn’t easy. But this [water and sanitation project] has improved our health and our lives.”